Who can fathom the abyss?

What follows is an old reflection piece, never published. Written not long after disasters in New Orleans and my personal life, over two years later I find that I still agree with its Stoic message of temperance and flexibility in the face catastrophe and change.

Aesthetically, it’s a bit… how do you say? Emersonianesque. Or wannabe-Emerson. At the time I was really enamored by his writing-style. I still am, but I’m learning to constrain my pen a bit. Reading the Economist and working Ben Paarmann’s scathing editorial remarks during the behind-the-scenes work on CyberChaikhana have really helped me tone down the flamboyance. — CS 12.06.2008

“Vanity of vanity, all is vanities!” wailed an ancient preacher millennia ago. “For all his toil under the sun, what does Man gain by it?” It is imperative that we 21st Century moderns ask ourselves this very same question, for we suffer existentially now as he and his contemporaries suffered existentially then.

Today, we are terrified and awed by natural cataclysms, one after the other, too immense for the mind to calculate and too gut-wrenching for the heart to withstand: Indonesia and Sri Lanka swept away by the waters which swept away all that Noah knew and loved; Pakistan obliterated by the shuddering earth which crumbled Jericho; and New Orleans wrecked by winds as Tarshish was, and then ravaged by riots and fire as Sodom and Gomorrah were. Undoubtedly, more death and heartache is to come.

Why? This is the question all of us, be we wealthy, middle class, working class, or poor, must ask: for what purpose do we struggle, day after day after day, when tomorrow all we have achieved could be extinguished, decimated to blood and tears and dust, eradicated to nothing?

As a spiritual man, the unrelenting sorrow of our era tempts me to close my eyes and peer inwardly. Yet, I am also a young man heady and full of himself, and so I do not look inward; instead, I look skyward. And I see: stars.

The universe is vast. Endless as a dream, more everlasting than a passionate kiss: here is where I live. Not in the busy tumult of my job, nor the furies and quiet desperations of my ambitions, nor even the happy memories and secret pities in my mind, but here, in this universe, this incredible, immense, intricate universe, this cosmos of smashing atoms and quivering wavelengths and exploding stars and swirling black holes, I exist—we exist!

And in this vast universe, what are we? Specks.

Of what importance are we specks? Simply, why are we? Humanity’s scriptures teach that our species is important to the mysterious Divinity that rules the universe, for it has sent us many revelators: Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, the Buddha, Confucius; and it has intervened in our affairs, though less and less conspicuously with every passing generation.

Why are we important? I dare say because we are alive: breathing, breeding, organic life. Without us, God would be alone in a universe that is essentially dead—not inactive, for at any moment particles are colliding and galaxies are spinning, but essentially inorganic, unthinking, unfeeling, and most all, without spirit, uncreative. Without us, it is truly an abyss.

However, despite heavenly and human desires for the contrary, logically we cannot be of ultimate importance. The cosmos are too great and intricate for us to be the Divine’s sole consideration. Indeed, many astrophysicists theorize that billions of years hence, the universe (which is ever-expanding) shall either tear itself apart or cool, slow down into a never-ending torpor, and perpetually decompose. To me, this makes the most sense, for it is clearly evident that everything ends, and everything rots. It’s a sad and sadly beautiful thought that at the end of all-that-is, God, the Eternal One, shall remain. Perhaps we shall become the cosmic smoke that halos its head; perhaps we just won’t be anymore. Either way, some heartbreaking finality seems inevitable.

So now I turn away from the stars, look around and see: we toil in a doomedly righteous obscurity. When all is said and done, what each of us can truly establish are our influences. Step into a stream and you forever change its course. Certainly its general meandering shan’t immediately alter, but who knows which drops of water your foot stole shall now never quench which root’s thirst; and after some time, which riverbank shall be weaker because of that forgotten root’s withering; and after more time, a storm and that riverbank’s collapse, which direction the stream shall finally flow?

It is not for us to determine how our efforts shall individually or collectively unfold over the eons, but we must act in the faith that somehow we shall effect the universe. How we effect the universe—destructive or generative, however infinitesimal—depends upon whether we act righteously while we still can. So go join a protest, feed a homeless man, listen to a hurting friend, even if tomorrow all civilization may burn.

Be kind, be just, and most of all, love.